Truth: How We Learned to Hate It and the Cult of Distrust

“Everyone’s Lying — Except the Liars”

The educated are lying to you.
The doctors are lying to you.
The historians are lying to you.
The journalists are lying to you.
The universities, the public health experts, the government, and the independent watchdogs — all of them are supposedly in on it.

But Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two men whose entire careers are built on deception, manipulation, and grievance, are somehow the lone beacons of truth?

Do you see how insane that sounds when you read it out loud?

The War on Expertise

There was a time when expertise was respected. When doctors were healers, scientists were seekers of truth, and journalists risked their lives to expose corruption.
But in today’s alternate reality, truth isn’t determined by facts — it’s determined by feelings.

If a scientist tells you something you don’t want to believe, they’re corrupt. If a journalist reports something uncomfortable, they’re biased. If a historian documents inconvenient truths, they’re rewriting the past.

The result is a public that treats ignorance as a virtue and skepticism as enlightenment — even when it’s just paranoia dressed up as “critical thinking.”

The Grifters and Their Goldmine

This distrust didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was cultivated — carefully, cynically, and profitably.
Trump and RFK Jr. both discovered the same goldmine: tell people they’re being lied to, and they’ll trust you forever — no matter how often you lie to them.

The formula is simple:

• Undermine the experts.

• Stoke fear and resentment.

• Sell the “truth” (in the form of books, supplements, or campaign donations).

It’s not enlightenment. It’s exploitation.

The Dangerous Comfort of Conspiracy

Believing that “everyone is lying” can feel empowering. It turns confusion into clarity, fear into control.
But it’s a false comfort — one that leads people to reject vaccines, deny climate change, and ignore the rising tide of authoritarianism in their own backyard.

Distrust, once weaponized, becomes a virus of its own. And unlike COVID, there’s no vaccine for a mind that refuses to think critically.

Relearning Trust

We don’t have to worship authority, but we do need to recognize when we’re being manipulated. Real skepticism means questioning everyone — including the people who tell you not to trust anyone else.

When the loudest voices against “the system” are billionaires, politicians, and snake-oil salesmen, it’s not rebellion — it’s a con.

If the only truth-tellers left are the ones selling lies for profit, maybe it’s time to stop blaming the experts — and start questioning our own gullibility.

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